Photographer/Writer Chris Arnade Discusses His ‘Faces Of Addiction’ Portrait Series

Brooklyn Heights resident Chris Arnade has a Ph.D. in physics, was a Wall Street banker for two decades, and is now a writer and a photographer, renowned for his affecting “Faces of Addiction” series on Flickr, in which he captures portraits throughout NYC of drug addicts and prostitutes, “giving them a voice and letting them tell their story.”

In an International Business Times profile, Arnade tells writer Charles Poladian about his journeys though Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Woodside, Jackson Heights, East New York, Flushing and Coney Island… as well as the site for “Faces” in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx.

He notes: “What’s particularly jarring about Hunts Point is that I don’t think many people in New York know it exists. It’s 15 minutes from the Upper East Side, which is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States, while Hunts Point is one of the five poorest neighborhoods. The disparity makes the whole thing more jarring.”